Xinhua News Agency, Xi'an, June 9th (Reporter Yang Yimiao Chen Changqi) The 20 pieces of glazes collected in the Famen Temple Museum are beautifully decorated with crystal clear patterns and very exotic. They are rare treasures in glazes. How did they come here across thousands of miles, and how did they see the sky after thousands of years in the ground?
"The Great Discovery" in the Mysterious Palace
"Famen Temple and Famen Pagoda are only seven or eight from the sky..." the local folk song sang like this. Such a pagoda is located in Famen Town, ten kilometers north of the county seat of Fufeng County, Shaanxi Province.
Han Jinke, who is more than a year old, mentioned the morning 33 years ago, and he was still excited.
On the morning of April 9, 1987, the stone gate of Famen Temple's palace was opened. At this time, 1113 years have passed since the underground palace was sealed. In 874 AD, Li Xuan of Tang Xizong ordered the gate of Famen Temple to be closed.
This was an unexpected discovery. In order to cooperate with the restoration of the pagoda in Famen Temple, archaeologists excavated and cleaned the pagoda, and found the digong manhole cover built in the middle of the pagoda.
Han Jinke was the original curator of the Famen Temple Museum and one of the in-persons discovered by the underground palace. He recalled that when the foundation of the Famen Temple Pagoda was surveyed to the center, a sunken step was found. The step was covered with green and rusty copper coins. At the end of the step, a stone door closed by a huge stone was visible.
Han Jinke said: "The stone door opened and the damp mist and the pungent musty smell spewed out, but the subsequent discovery surprised us a lot. There are two pieces of Tang Dynasty stele: Zhiwen stele and Wubei stele. The real body relic was enshrined in Famen Temple, and the history of offering reliance from the Wei Dynasty to the Sui and Tang Dynasties. The object account recorded the important names, quantities, specifications, and textures of the treasures provided by the relics in the Famen Temple. Information, the "glaze bowl" refers to these glazes."
Glassware witnesses flourishing Silk Road
In the Tang Dynasty, the trade on the Silk Road was very developed. These glazed utensils were introduced to China along the Silk Road along with spices and crafts. At that time, the western city of Chang'an City in Tang Dynasty was the international trade center for trading commodities along the Silk Road. The glazes of the Famen Temple Museum witnessed the prosperity of the exchange of Chinese and Western civilizations over a thousand years ago.
Among the glass wares collected in the Famen Temple Museum, there are the earliest glazed stained glass found in the era, as well as the glazed wares with the obvious characteristics of the Abbasid dynasty of the Arab Empire. A variety of production methods such as blowing, engraving, gold painting, and glaze are adopted. . Ren Xin, director of the Famen Temple Museum, said that these glazes were produced in the 5th and 6th centuries AD, as well as glazed plates with Islamic characteristics before the 9th century AD, as well as typical Chinese-style tea pots and saucers.
Among them, the eight-petal ball pattern depicts a gold-blue glazed disc, with a circular gold depiction in the center of the disc, and an eight-petal lotus flower engraved inside. The outer periphery is painted with gold wavy patterns, and a flower head similar to "Lonicera" is engraved inside and outside the valley. The outermost layer is a gold-drawing ring composed of two concentric circles. The remaining blank spaces are filled with fine parallel lines to make the theme pattern more prominent. This glazed plate is also a rare boutique of early Islamic glazes.
In the Tang Dynasty, Famen Temple was the center of Buddhism, and it enshrined the relics of Buddha fingers that came from the Western Regions. Emperors such as Tang Gaozong, Zhongzong, Suzong, etc. opened the Famen Temple grounds every 30 years for about 200 years.
Ren Xin said: "These exotic-style glazes came to China along the Silk Road and were enshrined in Buddhist monasteries by the imperial family at the time. This shows that as early as the Tang Dynasty more than 1,000 years ago, different cultures have achieved a high degree Communication and integration."
The treasures of the underground palace reproduce the prosperous weather
In the ground palace of Famen Temple, together with 20 glazes, there are 4 pieces of Buddha relics, mysterious porcelain that has disappeared for thousands of years, and more than 2,000 precious pieces of gold and silverware, jewelry, and clothing that were worshipped by the emperor of the Tang Dynasty. Cultural relics. Buddhism culture, court culture of the Tang Dynasty and exotic culture intermingled in the prosperity of the Tang Dynasty.
The secret color porcelain was fired for the royal family in the Tang Dynasty. "Nine autumn wind and Yue Yue kiln opened and won the Qianfeng Cui color." Tang Dynasty poet Lu Guimeng once praised the secret color porcelain. But for a long time, people "saw only their texts, but nothing", and could only imagine the "look" of secret porcelain.
A total of 14 secret-colored porcelains were unearthed from the Famen Temple Palace, including porcelain plates, porcelain plates, porcelain bowls and porcelain bottles. They are large in size, excellent in fetal quality, bright and glazed, like jade ice, and are exquisitely unusual. One of the secret-colored porcelain plates has five curved lotus petals and a sloping belly. Because of the uniform glaze layer and unique shape, under the illumination of the light, it seems that there is water in the plate.
Mao Xiaodong, a librarian at the Famen Temple Museum, said: Why is the secret color porcelain "secret"? At present, there are royal artifacts "secret does not show people", the firing method is kept secret, imitating the different expressions of the "secret grass" color and the secret color according to grade and category, which adds to the mysterious color of the secret color porcelain.
In addition, a large number of royal artifacts of the Tang Dynasty were found in the palace, including food utensils, tea sets, incense, clothing, coins, and various jewelry and miscellaneous items used in the daily life of the royal family, with gold and silverware and silk costumes as the bulk. These extravagant and precious treasures present a vivid and vivid picture of Tang Dynasty royal life.